Twenty-five years have passed since the release of Rufus Wainwright’s self-titled debut album, a rhapsodic collection of 12 songs celebrating his open homosexuality and given suitably cabaret-inspi…
. It’s a full-circle moment for the singer-songwriter after decades of sidelining his family’s pedigreed genre: though he’s collaborated many times with his folk-singer father Loudon Wainwright III, late mother Kate McGarrigle and aunt Anna McGarrigle, the album marks the first official folk/ Americana recordings of his career.to discuss the serendipity of “Folkocracy” arriving within just weeks of the May 19 anniversary of “Rufus Wainwright.
Your debut, I understand, was culled from 56 songs to 12 tracks. How many of those that didn’t make the cut originally go on to show up on later albums? From the beginnings of your career, you were incorporating a lot of really highly literate influences. How much of your creativity takes the form of trying to emulate influential or inspirational art?
You talked about your comfort level within the folk world, but at the time people immediately credited you for your openness with your sexuality and your music. Did that acknowledgement bolster your confidence, or maybe apply some degree of pressure going forward? To talk more specifically about “Folkocracy,” there’s obviously a palpable affection for these traditional songwriting structures. How did you conceive the unifying principle around this record?
The one that I was probably the most challenged by was “Down in the Willow Garden” just because it’s so blatantly masochistic and murderous and it’s sung from the perspective of the perpetrator. So I really wanted to sing that with a woman. So Brandy [Carlisle] did that with me, and that one I was conscious of. The other one that I spent a lot of time really focusing on and having a philosophical relationship with was the Hawaiian song, “Kaulana Nā Pua,” which I sing in the native language.
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